vriz-C- Lssay cm the coTnpara- 
t\ve. e co-no TTvy o? free ^■^^A 
<2>\avc labotiv (ti a^rvCL^-t tare. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

DDD13flflDHSl 




GIass_LAi4_ 
Book T^^ 



It 






ON THE 



COMPARATIVE ECOJ^OMY 



OP 






BY JAMES ^RAYMOND, 

OF FRED ERICK, MAR YMXD. 
APPROVED AND PUBLISHED BY THE COMMITTEE ON ESSAYS, 

OF THE 

S*ZIESERXCK OOUNTir AGRXCUIiTUIUili SOCIETIT^ 



What makes the nations smile, 
Improves their soil, and gives them double suns ; 
And why they pine beneath the brightest skies, 
In nature's richest lap. Thomson* 



5 FREDERICK: 
PRINTED BY JOHN P. THOMSON. 

1827. 



^ 



i**.-^-* 7y •>i^« ♦ 



^^. 



^*»- vV M^^ » tJ^S^ * * ^^^ 



» 



■r 






THE COMPARATIVE ECONOMY 



OP 



PREE AND SLAVE LABOUR IN AGRIOULTURfi. 

THE question before us is a branch of the general 
question of slavery. But perliaps it does not embrace the 
most fascinating topics for discussion, which are presented 
to tlie mind by the whole of that great and momentous 
subject. It reaches none of those elevated objections to 
domestic slavery, which many of the wise and good think 
they discover in politics, religion, or natural law. We are 
now simply to compare free with slave labour, as a 
means of cultivating the soil. We are to answer the 
very natural enquiry of the farmer,* which of these spe- 
cies of labour his own personal advantage calls upon him 
to employ. If we can convince him that free labour i^ 
the best, slavery, we hope, will in time go out of fashion, 
like an unhandy Airming tool on the introduction of a 
new one upon an improved model. 

This, I shall endeavour to do. I shall endeavour to 
chow that free labour is more convenient and cheaper 
than the labour of slaves. 

One of the most importanJ[fcj[rcum stances of conveni- 
ence, and therefore of profit^^vhich can be incident to 
farm labour, is, that it should be easily varied in its 
quantity. Nothing is more variable than the quantity 
of labour which the farmer has occasion to employ upon 
his farm at different times and under dift'erent circum- 
stances. The changes of the seasons as they severally 
occur, each in their turn, call upon the farmer to make 
corresponding changes in the quantity of his labour. He 
cannot conveniently or profitably employ as much labour 
in winter as in summer. The fluctuations of commerce 

* Tlie word /(inner is used tliroughout this essay to signify one who in 
•any w:ty carries on the business of cultivating the soil. 



is another cause which often induces the farmer to change 
from a kind of farming which employs a given number 
of hands, to a kind whicli would employ a much greater 
or less number. For example, the state of the markets 
may be such, that the corn and wheat growers would find it 
profitable to turn their attention to the growing of wool, 
which employs very few labourers compared to tlie for- 
mer kinds of farming, The soiUtself, also requires fre- 
quent changes in the kind of husbandry. In modern 
days, the great secret of good farming is supposed to 
consist in a proper rotation of crops. But the most im- 
portant rotation is from tilling to grazing, and vice versa. 
The good nortiiern farmer, after tilling his lots a few 
years, lays them down to grass. This he calls letting 
his lands rest. But if lie cultivated with slave labour, 
whilst his lauds were resting, most of his labourers would 
also be resting at his expense. 

The inconvenience of making frequent changes in the 
quantity of slave labour, and of suiting its amount to the 
requirements of the farmer, under every circumstance, 
must present itself to every one who reflects upon the 
subject. But what is more, the moral sense of society 
has erected an insuperable barrier to these changes. 
Public sentiment denies the character of respectability 
to men who are in the habit of buying and selling 
slaves. A farmer who should purchase a large num- 
ber of slaves, to perform the labour of his farm in 
summer, and who should sell them agivin when winter 
approaches, and so on f^^ year to year, would be de- 
nied a respectable standing in the community. But 
■where labour is free, and therefore the subject of contract 
between the employer and the labourer, these changes 
are frequently taking place throughout the year. The 
farmer purchases labour precisely as he purchases any- 
other commodity in the market, in such quantities and 
at such times as he wants it. He employs his labourers 
by the day, the month, or the year, as best suits his con- 
venience or interest. 

Nor does the farmer, by thus regulating the quantity 
of his labour to suit his own convenience, thereby dis- 
commode or impose any hardships upon the labourevs, 



Where labour is performed by freemen exclusively, hire- 
ling labourers upon a farm are not necessaiily confined 
to tiiat occupation. They often unite some mechanic art, 
or some other employment, to that of labouring on a 
farm for hire during the summer months. Every species 
of labour being respectable, because it is all performed by 
freemen, when the labourer is not wanted upon the farm 
of his employer, he is neither precluded or unqualified 
from turning his hand to something else. In one sha^)e 
or another, he is constantly promoting the trifold interest 
of himself, his employers, and his country. He is 
at one time employed in the farmer's field to supply 
his country with bread; at another he "guides the 
tool mechanic,'' or perhaps he has embarked upon the 
•• mountain wave," for the purpose of transporting the sur- 
plus production of his farm labour to some foreign port. In 
each of these employments, he is supporting himself, fur- 
thering the interest of property-holders, and promoting 
national wealth. This accounts not only for the thriving 
condition of the labourers and employers in free states, 
but also for the circumstance that free states support a 
much more numerous population than the slave states. 

But, it will be asked, if labourers are thus at liberty to 
bestow their labour when and where they please, what 
security has the farmer, that they will consult his con- 
venience and interest in serving him? Talk to a Maryland 
farmer of free labour, and perhaps he will tell you that 
free labourers are capricious ; that they will often take 
advantage of their liberty and forsake him, at the most 
hurrying season of his crops. Now, if there is any 
soundness iu this objection to free labour, is it not re- 
markable that it should never be made, except by those 
farmers who work slaves? Farmers in free states feel no 
apprehension that their farms will lie fallow for want of 
labour to till them, or that their crops when raised, will 
return into the earth for want of labour to gather them. 
The farmer is no more at the mercy of labourers where 
they are free, than mechanics or manufacturers in Ma- 
ryland or England, are at the mercy of the journeymen 
they employ. In this system of universal liberty, there 
is a controuling power, a regulating principle, which like- 



6 

a courteous master of ceremonies, accommodates tbft 
wants of the whole world much better than any number 
of individuals can be accommodated by attempting vio- 
lently to help themselves. In other words, the conflict- 
ing interests and necessities of each are the accoioiimoda- 
tion and security of all. 

Though this sentiment, in one form of expression or 
another, is the basis of all modern theories of human poli- 
ty, I will not ask a concession of its application to the pre- 
sent subject. Indeed such a concession would be yield- 
ing up the discussion. To say the conflicting interest 
and necessities of employer and labourer would most 
coiumodiously regulate their intercourse, is to use ano- 
ther phraseology to express, that free labour is prefera^ 
ble to slave. This being the point in dispute, I will 
endeavor to settle it, by showing its consanguinity to a 
family of maxims that have not been questioned for se- 
veral centuries. 

Labour and the fruits of labour both possess the same 
commercial properties. Labour, like the fruits of labour, 
is property; an article of bargain and sale; a commo- 
dity in the market, and as such, possesses the same com- 
mercial nature and constitution v/ith every other com- 
modity that is bought and sold. All the world agree, 
as a general proposition, that the most eflxictual method 
of rendering every commodity which is the subject of 
private property, cheap, plentiful and of good quality, and 
of placing it within the reach of all who wish to make 
use of it, is to secure to the producer of the commodity 
all the profits he can make by producing it ; by leaving 
him to produce it when he pleases ; to sell it to whom 
he pleases, where he pleases, and for the most that he 
can get. It is by these equitable laws, this free and un- 
shackled intercourse, that the farmer is always able to 
supply himself with the coffee of the West Indies, the 
tea of the East Indies, the carpets of Turkey, the manu- 
factures of Europe, in short, witli every luxury and 
comfort which the world affords. The effect of a dif- 
ferent system, with regard to the products of labour, may 
be easily illustrated. For example : Suppose the rest 
of the world should say to the farmers — Gentlemen, we 



are now too dependant on you for existence Meat and 
bread, the comforts and necessaries of life, come to tlie rest 
of mankind exclusively through your hands. Perhaps you 
may combine to close those hands upon us, and starve 
all but yourselves. To prevent so melancholy an oc- 
currence, and at all events to render ourselves indepen- 
dent of your caprices, we must alter the existing laws and 
take from you the right of disposing of your crops accord- 
ing to your own will and pleasure. What would be the 
farmers' reply ? Would they not say — Fellow citizens, 
take your own course. What produce we have raised, 
under the presumption that we were to dispose of it as 
we pleased, you can take and make the most of. But 
look out for short crops next year. We do not cultivate 
our lands if others are to enjoy the fruits. The world 
remained a wilderness until the producer was rendered 
secure in his rights to his produce. Depart from this 
policy, which has filled the world with abundance, and 
the earth will soon revert to its original state of sterility. 
!Now, all I ask of the farmer, is, that he should extend 
this reasoning on from the fruits of labour to labour 
itself. I ask him to believe, that the tree and the fruit 
are related together by one common nature. The same 
principle which renders it such good policy in the rest 
of mankind to protect the farmer in his right to his crops, 
renders it equally politic in the farmer to protect the 
labourer in the right to his labour. Labour, like wheat, 
is a commodity. The farmer is the consumer of labour, 
and the labourer is the producer. And as the rest of the 
world, in order to render the farmer's wheat cheap, 
plentiful, and of a good quality, are obliged to protect him 
in raising or producing it ; so the farmer can render la- 
bour cheap, plentiful, and of good quality only by secur- 
ing to the labourer, the raiser, the producer of the com- 
modity, all the profits he can make by its production. 

Slavery is such an extravagant departure in man from 
his own acknowledged policy and principles, that the 
contrast becomes ludicrous. The right which a man 
has to his own labour is the only private property 
Avhich exists by natural law. By the laws of na 
turc, the external world belonged to the human family 



' 8 

tis teuaots in common. But while this was the case, no 
man would bestow his own labour upon the external ob- 
jects around him, because those objects might be taken 
from him by some of his co-tenants, and with them would 
go the labour he had bestov.ed. To remedy this evil, to 
secure to man the private property he had in his own la- 
bour, and thereby induce him to become industrious, the 
whole external Avorld which was before held in common 
by the human race, was divided into private property 
also. Thus, mankind have artificially divided the whole 
of the external world into private property for the pur- 
pose of securing to the labourer his rights to his own la- 
bour, and then they resort to slavery to counteract that 
purpose ! A man's natural right to his own labour is 
first made the basis of all artificial property ; and is then 
sacrificed agd made the subject of that very artificial 
property of which it is the origin and support ! 

I state these counter currents in human conduct for the 
purpose of showing that they must lead to results as oppo- 
site as their courses. If reducing the external world to 
private property, by securing to the labourer the reward of 
his labour, has been the origin of commerce, agriculture, 
the arts and sciences, if it has been the means of filling 
the world with abundance and comfort ; slavery, by de- 
priving the labourer of the rewards of his labour, and 
thereby taking from him the motives to industry, must of 
necessity be attended by contrary effects. If securing 
to the producer of all other commodities, the profits of 
producing, renders them cheap, and plentiful, and of good 
quality, then it follows, that in order to render labour 
cheap, plentiful, and of good quality, the labourer, who is 
the producer of that commodity, must be rendered secure 
in the profits of producing it. It would be as wise for 
the rest of the world to attempt to provide against fa- 
mine by taking from the farmer the disposal of his crops, 
as it is for the farmer to attempt to provide against a scar- 
city of labour by infringing the liberty of the labourer. 
Leave the conflicting interests and necessities of the pro- 
ducer and consumer of labour to regulate it in every par- 
ticular, and the heavens may become as brass and the 
clouds yield no rain, but the faithful hand of the free la- 



9 

bourer will never desert the fields of the farmer. Where 
the labourer is free, the current price and fair treatment 
is as sure to command labour, as a fair price and fair 
.dealing is to command corn, meat, houses, land, or any- 
thing else. If you are particularly in want of labour, let 
it be known by offering the smallest fraction above the 
current price, and like other commodities under like cir- 
cumstances, it will throng you. You may thus concen- 
trate labour to any place, for any lawful purpose, private 
or public, peaceful or hostile ; to cultivate the soil, dig 
canale, make roads, erect fortifications, or liandle the 
musket. And how grateful ought man (o be^ at finding 
human nature so constituted, that in order to command 
human labour, and to use it either for public or private 
purposes, there is no necessity of su Injecting our fellow- 
creatures to involuntary bondage. What wisdom and 
benevolence is manifested by llie Beity in so making 
tlie world, tjrat every thing in it, withers beneath the in- 
fluence of slavery. With reference to farming, slavery 
may justly be defined an nnnatuial and involuntary re- 
lation between the farmer, the slave, and the soil, which 
operates to the mutual destruction of all. If the slave 
is obliged to perform involuntary labour for the master^ 
the master is also compelled to find employment and 
support for the slave, whether he finds him profitable or 
otherwise. The land is also laid under an exhausting 
system of contribution, and though out of heart from too 
much tilling, it must nevertheless be annually visited by 
the plough and hoe. 

In matters of profit and loss, however conclusive 
a theory may appear on paper, it may nevertheless 
be justly suspected if it stands opposed to the prac- 
tice of mankind. ^» The children of this world are 
wise in their generation." Mankind are selfish, and 
they study their interest with such care and assi- 
duity, that as a body they are not apt to mistake it. 
Avarice knows the road to wealth even better th;in phi- 
losophy herself. If slave labour, then, is so palpably 
and so extremely unprofitable, how does it happen that 
it has been so extensively resorted to ? 



10 

A slight attention to the circumstances under which 
slavery was introduced into the West Indies and Ame- 
rica, by those European nations who would not tolerate 
it at home, will answer this question. Take England 
for an example. When England introduced slavery 
into her American colonies and islands, she had as much 
free labour at home as the property holders wanted to 
employ. Accordingly " slaves could not breathe in 
England.'^ Their respiration could only go on in those 
parts of her christian dominions, where free labour was 
not to be had. England, at that time, placed great reli- 
ance on her colonies as a source of revenue. It was her 
settled policy to monopolize all her colonial commerce, 
and to increase that commerce as much as possible by 
increasing the productions of the soil. Here was a 
widely extended territory, with a soil and climate adapt- 
ed to the raising of the most profitable articles of com- 
merce. But the country was not yet populated. An 
immediate supply of labour was necessary, in order to 
render the colonies an immediate and productive source 
of revenue. As a momentary expedient, therefore, and 
in order to derive a momentary advantage, England 
commenced filling her colonies with slaves from Africa. 
The American planters, also, consulting their immedi- 
ate profit, and disregarding future consequences, and 
looking upon slave labour as better than none, at first 
fell in with the slave polii-y of England. But our fore- 
fathers finally discovered, that if slavery expedited the 
supply of labour on tlie one hand, it deteriorated its 
quality on the other. They became anxious that the 
country should poj»ulate with better inhabitants than the 
African slave. In their colonial legislatures, they im- 
posed heavy duties on the importation of slaves, and in 
1772, "Virginia was encouraged to look up to the throne 
and implore paternal assistance in averting a calamity 
of a most alarming nature." But the throne, (I mean 
of England) was in the habit of turning a deaf ear to 
American prayers. The final welfare of America was 
of small importance, compared to the immediate supply 
of the English treasury. 



11 

The same causes which iuduced England to prohibit 
slavery at home, while she was pouring tliem into her 
colonies, led Spain to pursue the same course. And so 
of France, and all the European powers, who were sup- 
plied witii free labour at home, but had infant colonies 
in the AVest Indies or America, which would lie for a 
short time without cultivation for the want of labour, 
unless a forced, unnatural, and in tlie long run, an un- 
j)rofitable system was resorted to, to supply the article. 
Instead of waiting for the new world to populate with 
labourers by the emigration of freemen, and the natural 
increase of poj)nlation, slavery was resorted to as a more 
speedy method of introducing labour. But the ten mil- 
lions of inhabitants with which two hundred years have 
peopled the United States, show how^ small must have 
been the necessity of enslaving mankind in order to in- 
troduce human labour into America. Labour, like all 
other commodities, if it had been left free to regulate 
itself by the conliicting interests and necessities of man- 
kind, would soon have found its way to the place where 
it was wanted, and supplied the demand. That this 
momentary deficiency of free labour was the sole cause 
of introducing slavery into America, appears conclusive- 
ly from the fact, that those nations who introduced it 
prohibited slavery at home, where there was free labour 
enough to do the work. Slave labour could only obtain 
where free labour was absent. The former was not able 
to compete with the latter where the employ er had his 
choice. . 

Having accounted for the manner in which the acting- 
part of the world have been led to employ slave labour, 
by circumstances which caused them to violate their own 
general rules and maxims, in matters of interest, I will 
now attempt to add a few reasons, why free labour, from 
the nature of things, as a general rule, must be the 
cheapest. The natural price of all human labour, which 
it requires no uncommon skill to perform, is barely a 
support of the labourers. Circumstances may vary this 
]Mire for a time. But a bare support of the labourers is 
the point to which the price of human labour is always 
(ending. The reason is obvious. The population of 



12 

any country is regulated by the means oi subsistence. 
The means of subsistence with the labouring class is 
their labour. If the price of labour is such that their 
labour more than supports them, they rapidly increase 
in numbers. This increase of labourers has a natural 
tendency to reduce the^ price of labour, precisely as the 
increased production of any other commodity has a ten- 
dency to reduce its price. Thus, labourers continue to 
increase and the prico of labour to decrease, until the 
labour of those who have no extraordinary skill at some 
mechanic art, or in some lucrative profession, is barely 
sufficient to support them. If labourers multiply beyond 
this limit pauperism endues, and becomes more and more 
aggravated until it checks the increase of population. 
The labour of tl»e labouring classes becomes inadequate 
for tiieir support, and immense numbers of them must 
perish for want of food, or be fed at the table of public 
bounty. This is at present the case in England and in 
most of the old countries in Europe. At the present 
prices of labour in England, the labour of the labouring 
classes is not sufficient to support them by several miU 
lions of pounds sterling. This deficiency is now made 
up b;y the poor rates ; but if the labourers were slaves, 
it would be supplied from the private pockets of their 
masters. Admitting, then, that a slave population will 
do as much work as a free, and that each will consume 
the same value of food and clothing, and the present 
amount of the poor rates in England is the precise sum 
w hii h the immediate employers of English labour save 
to themselves by its being free instead of slave. 

But to talk of a slave's using the economy, and doing 
the labour of a freeman ! The word slave is but another 
name for a lazy, wasteful, faithless fellow. It never was 
doubted, that a man constantly stimulated by the consi- 
derations that his character, his wages, in short, his living 
depends upon the industry and fidelity with which he 
labours, is much more active than he would be if he was 
put in motion by no other stimulant than the fear of pun- 
ishment. Free labourers are always more or less ani- 
mated by that active principle which may be seen in its 
full and most beautiful display by attending the plough- 



IS 

iug match ol* our .'.ociety. There is a constant rivalship 
among them, wlio sliall maintain the character of 
doing tlie most work, in the shortest time, in the best 
manner. Among slaves, this rivalship is reversed. The 
question with them is, who shall do the least work, iu 
the longest time, in the worst manner, and escape pun- 
ishment. I do not claim that there is no exception to 
these general rules. ' But these are the diifereut princi- 
ples, with w hicli nature has furnished man, as the gene- 
ral regulators of his conduct in the diflerent predica- 
ments of free and slave. With regard to the expense of 
supporting a nee or slave population, I will only re- 
mark, thai if the food and clothing of slaves may be a 
little coarser than that of free men, that consideration 
is counterbalanced l>y the superior economy of free 
men in the consumption. The motives of a poor free 
labourer to use the strictest economy in living, and the 
temptation of a slave to be w^asteful, are engrafted upon 
the same principles of human nature which lead the for- 
mer to be industrious and the latter to be idle, and they 
operate with the same force in the one case as the other. 
To sum up our reasoning, it amounts to this. A free 
population of labourers cause the earth to produce vastly 
more, and of that production they themselves consume 
vastly less than a slave population. In either case, the. 
labourers only deduct what they consume from what 
thcj cause the earth, to produce, as the price of their la- 
bour, and the remainder goes to the property holders. 
The doctrine that a bare support of the labour- 
ing classes of society, is the natural price of their 
labour, may seem to lead to tiie conclusion, that a 
poor free labourer can never rise above his poverty. 
But such a conclusion by no means follows. We have 
been viewing labourers as a whole class of society, and 
not as individuals. When viewed as a member of the 
labouring class of society, each active individual labour- 
er is considered as incumbered with his share of the old, 
the young, and the infirm, m hich his lal)our must sup- 
port besides maintaining himself. But when we view 
labourers, or any other class, as individuals, we see that 
the burden of supporting the weak is not laid thus equal- 



i4f 

ly upon the strong. We see strong and healthy labour- 
ers, in the vigour of manhood, unincumbered with an 
equal proportion of the weak and infirm. If such a la- 
bourer, so circumstanced, could only support himself, 
if he could lay up nothing by his industry, the weak 
and the infirm, and those whom they encumber, could 
not exist. Therefore, in a country where the price of 
labour stands precisely at its natural point, where it sup- 
ports, and only supports the labourers as a class, a 
young, healthy labourer, who only labours for himssclf, 
will be able to rise above his poverty. He will be able 
to lay up each year as much as he would have to expend 
in supporting the young, the old, the sick, and the unfor- 
tunate, if he bore his share of these burdens. With 
good management, the savings of one year become a 
helping fund the next, the use of which added to the in- 
come of his labour, quickens his pace from the vale of 
poverty, and in a few years he finds himself among the 
substantial property-holders of the country. 

In furtherproof of the position that slave labour is ex- 
pensive, I would ask, where has slavery principally cen- 
tered ? In tlie most fertile countries, and in southern cli- 
mates which grow the most profitable productions. The 
reason is, that slavery is a tax that poor soils and cold 
climates cannot endure. The cost of cultivating an unpro- 
ductive soil with slaves is more than the productions of the 
soil will bring in return. A lazy, negligent, wasteful slave, 
upon a cold, sterile, ungrateful soil, instead of producing 
any thin*" for the support of his master, would starve 
himself.* But cold countries and comparatively unpro- 
ductive soils are cultivated with free labour to great ad- 
vantage. Switzerland, Scotland, and New England, 
are striking examples. The freedom and character of 
the labouring population render each of these countries, 
to which nature has not been liberal in her gifts, popu- 
lous and wealthy. But reduce the free labouring popu- 
lation (if it were possible) to a state of slavery, and no 
man can doubt the consequences that would follow. 
Pauperism and famine would ensue, until it reduced the 
population to the number which could live in idleness 
and waste upon a poor, half cultivated soil. 



15 

Lastly, let nie particularly remind the farmer, that the 
economy, industry and good husbandry of labourers, are 
not more eft'ectual in increasing the population of a coun- 
try, than they are in enhancing tlic price of lands. The 
price of land is every where aft'ected by the character and 
number of agricultural labourers upon it. Land without 
labourers is good for nothing. It might as well be water, 
as the most fertile soil. It is the labourers upon the 
sandy plains of Rhode Island, that make them bear a 
higher price than the fertile bottoms of the Mississippi. 
The difference in the price of lantl in old and new coun- 
tries, is mainly owing to the circumstance, that the former 
are filled with labourers and the later not. Some sup- 
pose it is the presence of those who consume the produce 
of the soil that raises the price of land. But it is the pre- 
sence of labourers. The produce of the soil may be 
consumed any where, but a man must be upon the soil 
itself in order to cultivate it. For example, our flour 
bears about the same price, whether those who consume 
it reside in the county, in Baltimore, or in London. Let 
all the people of Frederick county suddenly substitute a 
different bread stuff* in the place of wheat, and if the rest 
of the world continued to make use of wheat for bread, the 
price of our wheat would experience no perceptible 
change. The price of wheat remaining the same, the 
price of the land which produces it would also remain the 
same. But let all the labourers leave Frederick county, 
and let it become impossible to supply their places for 
half a century, and our lands would be worth no more 
than lands of the same quality and advantages in a new 
country. So clear it is, that it is the presence of labour 
to till the land, which gives it its chief value. 

But the price of land is aff'ectcd by the quality of the 
labourers, as well as the number in the country. If the 
labourers are so negligent, idle and wasteful that they 
consume as much, in value, as they cause the land to pro- 
duce, tlie land is still of no profit to the owner. The 
value of the land is regulated by the value of the surplus 
produce which it yields after deducting the support of 
the lal)ourers. A man's farm, therefore, may be of no 
value from three causes. First, that it is situated in a 



16 



new country where there is no labour to cultivate it, oi' 
where the quantity of laud so far exceeds the quantity 
of labour in the country, that every man who chooses 
can find land enough to cultivate without paying any 
thing for the use of it. In this state of things, land, like 
air and water every where, is one of the common ele- 
ments. There is more than enough for every body in 
the country to use as they please, and therefore no body 
pays for the use of it. Secondly, a man's farm may be 
of no value, because the quality of the soil is so indiifer- 
ent, that the labour to cultivate it is worth as much in 
the market, as the produce which it yields. If a farm 
is so poor that it takes twenty dollars worth of labour, 
at the market price of labour, to raise t\iS^:^tiollars 
worth of produce, at the market price of proi^ace, the 
farm can hardly be said to have any value. True, the 
owner may labour upon his farm, and thus procure aliv 
ing. But he lives, strictly speaking, not upon the in- 
come of his farm, but upon the income of his labour. 
His farm pays him no more for his labour than his neigh- 
bour, who cultivates richer laud, is willing to pay for the 
same labour. It follows, thirdly, from what has been 
already said, that a rich soil, in a country where there 
are labourers enough, may produce no income to the 
owner, because the labourers are so idle, wasteful, and 
negligent, that they consume as much in value as they 
raise. This course of reasoning is fully sustained by 
the low price of the mo^t fertile land in all new coun- 
tries where labour is scarce ; the high price of compara- 
tively poor land at the north, where the labouring classes 
are the most industrious, economical and thrifty, and for 
the depreciated price of iirst-rate lands in Maryland, 
where the labourers are idle, and wasteful, and unfaith- 
ful, because they are slaves. 

But it is time to conclude an argument, vhich the pub- 
lie are not prepared to believe. The period has not yet 
arrived, for the American public to give full credence to 
any part of the truth on the subject of slavery. But if 
slavery continues, that period will come. Our form of 
government, our whole policy in every particular, with 
the exception of African slavery, is calculated to fill the 



17 

Union with as dense a population as ever existed in any 
country. The limit of po])ulation is the means of sus» 
tainiug life. These means are the most fully developed, 
and produce their utmost effect in free governments, 
where every citizen is left in the full enjoyment of his 
rights, and where he is permitted to push his way by the 
exercise of all his talents, skill and strength. When, 
from these causes, the United States shall teem with an 
overflowing population ; when, as frequently happens in 
all populous countries, some change in national affairs 
shall suddenly throw the poor free labourers out of em- 
ployment ; w hen poverty and want, hunger and cold, 
-414 shall excite tliera to phrenzy and drive them to despera- 
tion ; when to this shall be added the aggravating cir- 
cumstance, that in order to sustain the system of African 
slavery, millions of the American poor are expelled the 
farmer's field, where it is their birth right to labour, that 
they may live ; then will be the time, for truth to burst 
upon a nation, which thought to reconcile the conflicting 
powers of the moral universe: A nation which continued 
to worship slavery as a household goddess, after it had 
constituted liberty the presiding divinity over church 
nnd state. 



e 



APPBZffDIX. 



I had nearly concluded my essay, when a fiiend favov 
ed me with the second Report of the Committee of the 
society (in London) for the mitigation and gradual aboli- 
tion of Slavery throughout the British dominions. This 
valuable document relates to the slavery of the British 
possessions in the West Indies. But it also contains some 
important facts and arguments relative to tlie abstract 
question of the comparative economy of free and slave 
labour. I therefore take the liberty of making such 
extracts from the pamphlet as appear to me appropriate 
to the present occasion, and of presenting them as an 
appendix to my essay. 

It is well known to all my readers, that sugar is an 
article of both East and West India production. That 
in the East Indies the cane is cultivated and the sugar 
is manufactured by free labour; and that the same is done 
in the West Indies by slave labour. Here then the two 
kinds of labour come in direct competition ; and the 
question of the comparative economy of free and slave 
labour seems to resolve itself into the question, whether 
the East or West India sugar planter can aflord sugar 
at the cheapest rate. It would seem impossible to test 
the subject we have been discussing by an experiment 
more direct and apt than the one which the East and 
West India planters have been making by accident. 

The result of the experiment is, that the parliament 
of England are obliged, in effect, to tax her own inha- 
bitants to an enormous amount, in order to pension the 
West India planter, and thereby prevent him from being 
utterly ruined and broken up by the E?ist ladia planter 



19 

witli his free labourers. In other words, the Englisb 
parliament grant |o the West Indiaman a most extrava- 
gant monopoly In the sale of his sugar iii England. 

"" This monopoly, (says the Report before me,) is at present sup- 
ported, first, by a bouiiiy of upwards of six shillings per cwl. on the 
export of (West India) refined sugar, and which necessarily raises 
the price not only of all such sugar exported, but of all the sugar 
consumed ai hfcnie, to the extent of the bounty ; and, secondly, a 
protecting dal^ of ten shillings a cwt. more on East India than on 
West India sifgai*: thus favouring sugar grown by slave labour in 
preference to that grown by free labour, to the extent of about^i-y 
Jier cent, on the cost of the article." 

" Now, to Ay nothing at present of the degree in which prices 
are raised by the operation of the protecting duty, the cost of the 
West India monopoly, aiisingby the sugar bounty alone, may be 
estimated at about ;G 1,200,000 annually. And it is this large sum, 
(in addition to^hatever tfiiliancement of price may be produced by 
the proiectinsr duty) paid by the people of England to the growers 
of sugar over and aliove what that sugar would otherwise cost, which 
docs in fact thiefly maintain unimpaired and unreformed, the 
Wretched system of colonial bondage." 

* * * " " It is calculated that there are in the West Indies 
about eighteen hundred sugar plantations ; among the proprietors 
of which the twelve ht^ndrcd thousand pounds w hich the people of 
•England are forced to pay, over and above what the same sugars 
would cost them if the trade were free, is of course divided ; mak- 
ing on the average about,;C700 sterliag annually to each proprietor ; 
and this independently o|| the advantage, whatever it be, which h^ 
derives from the protecting duty.'' 

Thus it is manifest, that the West India slave holding 
sugar planter, receives a pension from England of ^700 
a year, to protect him from being ruined by the compe- 
tition of the East India sugar planter, who works free 
labour. 

" An objectjou has been raised in the minds of many benevolent 
persons, to the abolition of the West India monopoly, and of the 
bounties and protecting duties by which it is maintained, on the 



20 

ground that a depression in the price of slave grovvtHiroduce would 
tend to aggravate the misery of ihe slave, and^o expose him to far- 
ther privations, and perhaps even to starvation itself." 

But the committee in their report mainflaikj^^ 

" That whatever tends to raise the price of the slave grown«^ro- 
duce of the colonies, tends in the same degree to rivet the chains, 
and to add to the labour and misery of the slave ; while the depres- 
sion of its price operates beneficially, both in rela^ng his bonds, 
abating his toils, and enlarging his comforts." ^P' 

In other words, the advocates of the W?st India mo- 
nopoly maintain, that if parliament does not infferfere in 
this East and West India rivalship, between free and 
slave labour, the East India planter, witH|his free la- 
bour, will ruin the West India planter, with his slaves, 
and starve his slaves to death. But the Aoolition 80- *< 
ciety maintain, that if parliament will withdraw their 
interference in the rivalship betivi^n free ^d slave la- 
bour in the East and West Indies ; if they will abolish 
the West India monopoly, the East Intlia-^Ianters will 
cofljpel the West India planters to set thek slaves free. 
That if parliament will withdraw this ^700 annuity tH 
the West India planter, in order -tq^'enablfe l^pm to stand 
his, ground with slave labour against the East India- <^ 
mai>^vith free labour; it will compel the West India- >» 
man to give up the contest. Whicft of thfese opinions » 
is correct, is totally immaterial to the present question. 
It is agreed by both parties, that if it were mi for par- 
liamentary interference, the slaveHabour of the West 
Indies would not be able to cope >ftth the free labour of 
the East Indies, for a siude year. * 



.hdii ,, 



